Hospital Visit by Danita Chapin

Continuing on our journey to learn about children’s care, today we visited Selian Lutheran Hospital in Arusha. Our first stop was on the outskirts of town where we were quickly told that we were in the wrong place. Apparently this particular hospital has more than one location and the doctor we were meeting was at the hospital located in town. So, back we went into the city to find the right place. Our driver found the right place without any trouble, and we met the pediatrician and hospital secretary who would give us a tour.

 

We started the tour in the pediatrics ward where children up to the age of 14 receive medical care. The pediatrics ward has 16 beds, but only 6 were occupied on this particular day. According to the pediatrician the main cause of hospitalization for children is malnutrition. Of the three children we saw on our tour, two of them were being treated for malnourishment and the other had a respiratory issue. All three children (and their mothers) were staying in one room together and there was room for another patient in that same room,  if needed. Unlike the hospitals I have stayed in in the United States, this hospital (and many others in Africa) only provide medical care. This means that family members must stay with the children while they are in the hospital to provide their daily care, bring their own linens from home for the patient, and also provide their own food. Add to this that most people in this community have no health insurance and it is not surprising that many people do not seek medical care for themselves or their children. Quite often, the children that are brought to the hospital are there because hospital social workers, through their community outreach program, have come across malnourished children and encouraged their parents to bring the child to the hospital for medical care. For those parents that do bring their children to the hospital for care, often it is too late, and the doctors are unable to help the child. This is not because the parents do not want their child to receive medical care, but because the costs associated with hospital visits are not affordable. So, parents are likely to try to treat illnesses by purchasing medicine at a pharmacy instead of going to a doctor or hospital.

The next stop on our tour was the obstetrics ward. For a woman that gives birth at this hospital, without any complications, the hospital stay will be about 24 hours and the cost is 26,000 TSH ( or $10). For a more complicated birth, such as a c-section, the stay is three days and costs 104,000 TSH ( or $40). While the hospital has an ultrasound and CT machine, it does not have a ventilator or MRI capabilities. If a patient in obstetrics, or any other ward, needs that kind of care they are sent to a larger hospital somewhere else. Again, because of the costs of going to a hospital, it is common for women to give birth at home with the assistance of a midwife. While home births are helpful for saving on medical costs, there are additional issues created because home births are not always recorded and this means a child does not have a birth certificate. Obviously this can complicate things for the child later on in life, but also makes it difficult to compile any reliable data about birth statistics, population, and many other things.

 

Overall, the hospital tour and the information shared by our tour guides was eye opening. Living in a country where it is commonplace to go to a doctor for even non serious illnesses, it was heart wrenching for me to realize that medical care is not available to many people here in Tanzania. This is something that I am sure you can read about if you are inclined to research it, but being here and seeing the real people in this community that are affected by a lack of access to medical care has much more impact and makes me wonder why we can’t do better.